Any project that attempts to index old handwritten
records will have errors. These may occur in the transcribing from the original
document or in the typing of the index. Please contact the Sturgis Public
Library if you find such an error. Myrtle Rivers Tisdel did the transcribing of
this index using a copy of the atlas map as her guide. Marian Hair did the data
entry from Myrtle's handwritten notes. Matthew Mapes constructed the original
spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) for this and the 1872 index. Appreciation goes to
these three people who worked on this project.

Please note the following setup rules that were followed for
this index:

* All places of business or residence and parcels of land are entered under
the owner's last name when known.
If the name of the business is not known, it is entered under its general name, i.e. store, wagon
shop, etc.
* For items such as mills or springs listed in a township, the owner of the
land is listed in parenthesis after the item.
* A number in parenthesis after a person's name indicated how many times their
name appears in that certain section of the township or village.
* All personal names are spelled as they appear in the atlas, however the names
of business have been spelled out if we felt confident in converting the
abbreviation.

Because transcribing this index for the St. Joseph
County, Michigan USGenWeb Project is also done by human hand, there could be
further errors. We've made every effort to have this be as error free as
possible from our part. We greatly appreciate the work that's come before us
that allows us to put this on the St. Joseph County USGenWeb Project and are in
debt to these people.

We did find one typing error in the introduction and
changed it because it didn't involved historical data. There are some errors in
the body of the work that could be typing errors but because we don't have the
Atlas to check, we've left them as we've found them. Individual researchers may
check with the Sturgis Public Library.

Many special thanks to Myrtle Rivers Tisdel, Marian
Hair and Matthew Mapes for their efforts.

A very special thank you to Josie Garzelloni and Carole Carr for their
wonderful transcription and editing efforts in getting this important document
online for the St Joseph Co., MI USGenWeb project.